


In the caves all cats are grey

by Darling_Ghost



Series: Arya rises: Braavos, an awakening and sweet vengeance [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bath Houses, Blindness, Braavos, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Hand Feeding, Loss of Faith, Spanking, needle, waif-murdering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:30:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darling_Ghost/pseuds/Darling_Ghost
Summary: The blindness was not merciful, not black like a starless sky.Alternate title: "Here, I fixed season 6 for Arya"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [В темноте все кошки серы](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11610042) by [arktus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arktus/pseuds/arktus)



It wasn’t _quite_ a betrayal.

She had earned it - gladly- watching the life run out of Meryn Trant’s body.  No, she deserved a punishment, she knew it with every fiber of her being but the desire, the darkness to release the name of Meryn Trant from her circular chant every night overtook any fear of retribution.

She would kill Meryn Trant again and again.  She had, in her mind; she did and felt his hot blood on her, and she would watch the killing after it happened thousands of times with a curl on her lips.

But this, this:  such a punishment.

And delivered by his hand, it _tasted_ like a betrayal, the last one in a string of disappointments that fell to the ground, hope into ash, chalk in her mouth.

This Jaqen was not her dark savior at Harrenhal, her black angel, the bravery that prowled outside of her body.  Blood had run across the stones and down the walls at Harrenhal, from her lips to his blade. Leather and armor and secrets, and an awakening that she could not name inside of her.

Tenderness on the tip of a knife, the only to be found at Harrenhal, his eyes peering into her softly, his scent in her mind, even as she was just a child.  

This Jaqen was a stranger. _Jaqen is dead._

She tried to please this Jaqen.  To unlock him.  To spark him. For what, she did not know.  Acceptance, at least, but she could not pass the tests, could not give up enough of herself to coax the familiar Jaqen out.

_Jaqen is dead. Jaqen is dead._

At least that’s what she’d thought.  Until he had to punish her, this stranger cutting her more deeply than swords.   _For then she saw him._ Found. His entire body changed and just for a moment he softened, saddened, and regret washed over the face of no one.

He was still there, somewhere, a star still pulsing behind a nest of clouds.

That, that regret was the last thing she saw until everything grew fuzzy and she could see no more.

  
  


\--

Hunger was fiercest when it was new, sharp.  Her first days of begging, she could have sobbed for the lack of food.  

She was no longer _wearing_ the face of a beggar, of someone starving. _She had become._  She was consumed by the persona, the tight ache in her abdomen an incessant thing, never leaving her, intertwining completely on the sharp edge of her awareness, stealing her vigilance from her.  

Blindness didn’t mean that everything was black.  Oh, that would have been mercy itself, to slide into a black night, starless, and let herself float away from the hunger.  

No, blindness is gray, a purgatory of fog with no edges.

 

\--

 

Over the next few days she subsisted on scraps.  The thud of a well-heeled boot preceded a piece of goats-meat, almost too spicy for her mouth; she had eaten it and savored the waves of pain, of heat that remained afterwards.  That bit of meat allowed her to sit up straighter, to shake her cup with an additional vigor every time she heard footsteps that sounded like those boots.

She heard all of it, the trudging of feet as they passed her; the squeaking of a cart; the shuffle of other beggars; mothers pulling their children closer to them as they passed her.

Soon she’d hear everything, be unable to ignore the symphony of creaks and sighs and steps as they were the only thing that punctuated the gray.

All of that humanity, and she was nothing.  She was no one. Arya Stark slid off of her like a cloak, pooled at her feet.

It did not matter who she had been. She was too hungry, too miserable to care. She was no one.

No one still said the names, a mantra, meaningless as a prayer long forgotten.

 

\---

 

The waif came later.

Arya smelled her first, that clinical smell; antiseptic and death and coolness.  Her steps weren’t silent; she walked up to Arya not even bothering to disguise them. The arrogance of them, purposely walking up to her.  

“Are you listening, blind girl?”

Arya felt the staff that the waif threw, glancing off of her arms.

“Stand and fight.”

Breaths came short and shallow, fear; and the blows rained on her, vicious.  The waif was everywhere, the sharp edge of her staff relentless and each time she stood up again and frantically hit at the air another volley of pain would fall on her.

At the last she could taste the hot tang of her blood in her mouth, and her fear thumped through her.  And the waif left with a promise.

“See you tomorrow.”

 

\--

 

That night she wondered abstractly why he hadn’t come to save her, why he had forsaken her.  Like a child.

And then she remembered.

_Jaqen is dead._

 

\--

 

The waif came again and again.

Arya was starting to understand how the air would move in front of the staff; how the direction of the blows would change; that there was a pattern to the waifs movements even if it seemed as random as the way that the stars had been sprinkled in the night sky.

 

\--

 

The last time, she hadn’t fought her off completely. But she could smell her fear.  She could hear the waif’s anger, rising, and still she pushed, pushed against her: _tormentor peer predator._

_Prey._

_“What’s your name?”_ Her cool voice contrasted with the searing blows, with the rough cobblestones that Arya fell onto.

“No one.”  Arya spat the words.

“I don’t believe that. You don’t believe that.”

Arya swung wildly, desperately, willing the staff to destroy the waif, to as she was about to rail against her for the last time something else pierced the air.

 

Ginger, cloves.

 

And her raised staff was held as if by iron.

“Who are you?”

The voice was as warm as furs by a fire, as sweet as honey on her tongue, as deep as the Narrow Sea.

“No one.”

“If a girl says her name, she will sleep under a roof tonight.”  Silk, sliding over her limbs.

“A girl has no name.”  She tightened her hands on the staff.

“If a girl says her name, a man will feed her tonight.”  The voice was lower, quiet, and a girl could not divine what she heard in it as it wrapped around her, reached deep into her belly.

“A girl has no name.”

“If a girl says her name, a man will give her eyes back.”

She felt her breathing, still the shallow scared breath of someone else, hot and panting with the adrenaline and fear of no one, the grey overtaking her, enveloping her.  She had always been blind. She existed only in this moment in time.  

“A girl has no name.”

One heartbeat. Her own, no one’s, the sound of the universe pausing for a moment.

“Come.”

One word, the click of a key fitting into a lock.

One word, a release of fear, an acceptance too long starved.

She could not stop trembling.   _Saved._ He had come.

And no one heard something familiar, and she was wreathed in it, she kept it. It was there, real yet ephemeral like the smell of him, like the warmth of him.

 

Tenderness.

 

“A girl is not a beggar any more.”

She heard him wait in front of her, and she followed with short steps, followed through the gray at the sound of his voice, tendrils pulling her along, ginger and cloves pausing to make sure she was right behind him.

 

_Jaqen had returned._

 


	2. Chapter 2

She followed with stuttering steps, scuffing against the stone staircase, keeping the scent of him in range.

There was no hesitation in the way he moved, calibrated to the sound of her footfalls.  He merely moved and she moved and haltingly they made their way.

Sound started to fall away as they neared the House of Black and White, she could tell as the murmurings grew sadder, fearful and then almost silent save for the occasional wailing muffled by the great chamber, by the water in the pools.

She felt the air turn cooler and the sounds glance off of the stones as they entered.

Still he walked slowly in front of her, still she followed, her steps timid, the walls of the corridors a comforting thing that she could touch and feel and remember as he led her further down into the bowels of the building.

Steam. Warmth. He had taken her to the baths.

 

\--

 

She had been cold for so many days she couldn’t think straight, giddy with the promise of letting herself warm completely.  She had been hungry for so long it felt like another ache of her muscles.  The baths. The kitchen, nearby.  Relief.

“If a girl says her name, I will give her eyes back.”

Again, he said this; not a taunt but with a gentle wistfulness in his voice, sweet and intoxicating as summer wine from Dorne.

She straightened, aware of the steam rising, aware of the smell of her, almost ashamed of her filthy cloak, pissed on and ragged amongst the clean herbal smell of the baths.

“A girl has no name.”

She must have pleased him.  A touch; his fingers, massive, on her face.  They were gentle, and she followed the rough pads of his fingers on her forehead. He gave a low laugh and pushed into her lean.

And then a reward for her. He pushed his fingers into her, dragging them from her forehead and lingering on the curve of her cheek, dragging down her neck to rest in the hollows of her collarbone.  

No one does not want, even when it rises like smoke from an ember. She concentrated on the gray cloud behind her eyes, the heat rising, crackling from her belly.

_Jaqen H’ghar is dead._

 

 _Or, Jaqen H’ghar is not dead_.  For the same hand that stopped, gently toying with her collarbone, has loosened her cloak, and she feels it brushing down her body.

Arya screwed her eyes tighter against the gray and steadied herself. His hand left a trail of sparks behind it, brushing between her breasts and down to her stomach and then pausing there, the meat of his palm pressing against her abdomen as if to feel her breathing, fingertips just above the darkness, the rough hairs above the start of her, softly pressing against the tender skin.

She felt herself flicker under his touch, felt an almost painful tightening of her nipples, and bit her lip to stop herself from moving.

He stood there immobile and she could hear his breath catch.

And just as the hand had alighted on her from nowhere, so it went, and she brushed away a wave of disappointment as his warmth eluded her and the feeling of hunger crept back in to steal its place.

“Come.”

The warm voice pulled at her, and she felt his hand again, pulling her fingers and guiding her into the bath.  She sunk in with a groan: warmth, finally, finally.  A splashing sound told her his hand was in the water as well, and a cloth appeared at her neck and rubbed its way down her body.

“A beggar is filthy, but a girl begs no more.” She couldn’t tell if he was talking to her, or if she was supposed to answer; all she could feel was the cloth moving up and down her arms, across her chest and dipping under each breast.  The cloth moved again further down and when he washed the tops of her thighs she parted her legs for him unthinking.

The cloth stopped and she heard his breathing again; she froze and then started to sit up, aware of a wet heat spreading between her legs, embarrassed that he might feel it.

“Does a girl fear a man?”  His voice was so low she had to strain to catch it.

“A girl fears no man.”  She did not, she decided, and leaned back again.  The heat was pleasant, something she had felt for him in secret, at night.  Alone.

If he was there and enflamed her, so be it.

“Good.”

The cloth, scratchy, it continued on down to her feet and she relaxed, boneless under his washing.

He moved back around by her hair and she heard the dip of a cup and then his fingers spreading warm water through it, massaging her scalp and gently washing it, pulling out tangles and knots.  She was almost asleep - her guard was down for the first time in weeks, and it felt so good to have him watching over her.

He rinsed her hair and she felt him move behind her; ginger and cloves moving above her face and then the press of his lips on her forehead, held there; soft and firm and warm.

When his lips moved away she felt one finger under her chin, guiding her to sit up.  She got out of the tub, feeling as unsteady on her legs as a foal, the bath washing away almost everything, leaving her hunger a sharp thing, a dagger on her inside.

And her want, confusing and warm around it.

A cloth was handed to her and she moved it quickly over her, the air chilly and suddenly without the warm safety of the water she felt exposed, felt her teeth start to chatter.  A clean dry robe that she clutched up against her, and his hand on her back.

“A girl goes to her place, she waits.  Go now, girl.”

Arya’s feet knew where to go, and they took her there slowly, creeping along the stone walls up to her cell.  And as she walked, the only thought in her head chased itself around and around.

_A girl’s place._

 

_\--_

 

The cot in her cell was not fresh, but dry and it felt like the softest bed of sweetgrass. Arya shook out the blanket and stretched herself along the length of it.   _She waits._

He had changed, he had come back to her, to whatever self he’d been before and she the comfort of it was more than she’d felt since the last time she felt Ned Stark’s hand on her shoulder. She nestled into the bed.

She tried not to sleep when she laid out she started to fall to a world  that was light, and green, and then a warm hand on her shoulder brought her into the gray, startling her to sit up and fold her hands on her lap.

“A girl must eat.” He kept one hand on her knee, and she felt something, round and firm against her lips. A fig. She bit into it, allowing him to feed her, figs and bread and some meat,  and she felt outside of her body, blindly opening her mouth, each bite making her more and more sleepy.

The last bite was a piece of cheese, salty and tangy.  His finger rested against her lip and then dipped into her mouth. She sucked the brine from the cheese off of his finger and released it from her mouth, slowly, listening to his breath hitch and change again. She allowed the taste to permeate her mouth and she finally, finally spoke.

“You came for me.”

She could imagine him bending his head for her, imagine the curls falling over his shoulder, imagine the quirk of his lip bending up.

“Just so.”

She smiled, and put her hand on his massive one holding her knee down; letting her fingers snake up his arm, pausing on the firm plane of his bicep and pulling him closer to her.

His lips brushed her forehead and she tucked her head up against his chin; she could tell by the way she was able to nestle against him, by the feeling of his breath against her cheek, by the muffled thumping underneath her. her belly full, her limbs heavy, all of it still in the gray behind her eyes.

“You came.” She could barely make a sound.

Jaqen pulled her up to him and lay her on the cot, enveloping himself around her, keeping her head in the crook of his chin, his other arm lazily draping over her and then pulling her in.  She tucked in closer, and his fingers dipped lower and rested on the small of her back and then to the curve of her rear and she felt the tips of his fingers drifting, restless, so close to her most intimate place.

She shivered and the fingers moved away, the hands firmed and simply pulled her in even tighter, the fingers moving away from her heat, heavy on her waist.

Intoxicating, the opium of sleep, washing over her with his heat, the pleasantly full feeling in her stomach.  She started to drowse as he adjusted himself, and against her mouth she felt his lips.

Her own opened to allow him entry, and gently his tongue moved against hers, spice and iron, insistent and then soft again, before pulling away to whisper against her lips.

“Sleep now, sweet girl.”

Arya’s eyes were already closed, and she sucked at the wetness he had left on her lip, tasting it as she drifted off, her breathing matching to his, the gray slowly dissolving into something warm and hard against her, comforting her through her sleep and into her dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooo now with baths and fluff!


	3. Chapter 3

He must have left, at some point in the night.

 

She woke up, curled against herself, the room too quiet. The sounds outside told her it was morning, still early.  

She should not have expected him to stay.

But she had not expected  _ anything _ from him, and he had taken her, washed her, fed her.

Lay with her.

Her had pressed his mouth against her and murmured in her hair, against her lips.

 

She shook her head.  Enough. 

 

She reached her hand against the wall, pushing a foot out to find her sandals, and then changing her mind.   _ Clever girls go barefoot. _ And especially those that can not see, that must rely on the soles of their feet for their balance, on the tips of their toes.

She made her way tenuously, slowly, to the stairs and towards the kitchen.

There was none of the usual low murmur of voices when she walked in, but as she felt her way to the massive table she heard Umma cluck.  A moment later, her hand, the skin paper thin to the touch, smoothed her hair.

“Child. You must eat. They want you to train today.”

Umma had always been kind, and Arya nodded her gratitude for the porridge, the mug easy to hold, grains and fruit and cream and another mug of goat milk that she drank greedily, aware but not caring about the dribble down her chin until she finished and set the cup down with a sigh.

Arya’s stomach had finally stopped aching, the food last night - the thought of Jaqen’s finger lazing on her lips, of his mouth pressed against her - all of it seemed very faraway as she swallowed and started to bring her thoughts back to the business of her training.

Before it had been with the waif, face to face.

She supposed nothing would change.

Arya stood and cleared her head. Prepared herself.

No one did not care, about repaying the torment that the waif had given her.

And no one did not care about warm breath on her neck, fingers curved around her, the soft touch of his hand as he fed her.

No one was ready to train.

As briskly as she could, she walked the familiar path to the training salon, her fingers telling her which way to go, the stones in the wall guiding her to a room where she could hear the whirring of a staff, the falls of the waif’s small feet.

 

She was waiting. 

 

Arya reached for her weapon.

“You shouldn’t even be here. He should have left you to beg out there, to die.”  The voice sliced through the air, and Arya moved ahead of a rush of cool air.

The blow that meant to slash at her face merely glanced off her shoulder.

“But here I am.”

Arya whirled and struck, low; the hiss of her own staff a disappointment.

A blow on her back, knocking her, hard, against the stones.

“Who are you.”  The waif had withdrawn, her voice came from the other side of the tablet.

Arya moved again, this time not completely towards the voice but a few paces away and swung as hard as she could.  

The satisfying crack of wood against skin, a grunt of pain that the waif could not hold back. 

“No one.”

As she answered, Arya moved her staff, but not before she felt the rush of air against her and then a hit, harder than she’d ever felt from the waif, along her ribcage. Her rage was palpable.

“That’s a lie.”

Over and over they moved, and after a few minutes Arya lay beaten and bloody on the ground.  Arya breathed in the cold stone air, smelling the dust and her own blood, hot in her nose, dripping down her face in the same rivulet that Umma’s milk had earlier.

She heard the waif smirk to herself and those arrogant footsteps, triumphant, walk away from the edge of the tablet. 

She couldn’t be taken down by the waif.  

If nothing else, she would stand and get beaten again.

But she had to get up.

The gray haze behind her eyes was tinged with red and she pushed, pushed with all of her might against the floor, raising her shoulders and then to one knee, then the next. Pain is a thing of the body.  It is there, and it is gone. 

 

_ Stand.  _

 

Those cool footsteps halted as Arya knocked her staff on the ground, fully upright and standing and triumphant. The waif’s discontent whirled around her and she marched out the door.

And then, like a flag signaling the vanguard, the scent of cloves and ginger.

Arya could smell more of him now; as her blood rose the scent of leather, of his hair, the rich scent of his skin.

She clutched her staff tightly if only to stop herself from moving toward the scent.

The waif’s footsteps quieted down the hallway and Arya bowed her head. 

His presence moved toward her, and she ached to smell him more closely.

 

To feel his hand upon her again.

 

Instead his words warmed over her.

“What would a girl give to conquer the other?”

Arya shrugged. A test.

“Nothing. It is just training. A girl is no one. A girl wants nothing.”

He stepped closer and she could feel him radiating onto her, a warm golden glaze over her body.

“Does a girl truly want nothing?”

“Valar dohaeris.”  She said the words as coolly as she could, taking Arya Stark away, leaving her wants and her needs across the Narrow Sea. 

He chuckled and the sound, the sound reverberated through her.

She shuddered with the lie.

“Indeed.  Arya Stark, you must serve.”

“A girl is not Arya Stark.”

Arya Stark had never felt this, had never had her blood humming through her body, had never gripped the staff so tightly so that the strange feelings coming through her would stop.  Arya Stark had never felt a wetness near him, nor the sensation of the hairs standing up at the back of her neck even though there was no draft.

_ This girl was not Arya Stark. _

A girl was ready to become someone else.

This other hand, strange, unseen to her, reached unbidden and her arm raised to feel his face.  She reached to the source of his breath and felt his lips between her fingers, hesitantly, she traced the edge of his lip.

And bit her own back, as he suckled the tip of her finger and licked down to her palm, his tongue a pointed thing, tracing lazy circles on the meat of her thumb and sucking it into his warm, wet mouth.

She gasped. How can such a thing feel so...strange? 

At her laugh he released her hand and she could have sobbed to take the sound back, to keep his mouth on her hand.

Large hands surrounded her neck, and for a moment she thought he was going to kill her, to twist her neck just so as he had taught her, to end this facade here and now.

Instead she felt the tickling of his face against hers, and where her eyes should have seen him they only felt his lips, tenderly kissing her eyelids and moving his mouth up to her forehead.

He shuddered as he kissed above the furrow of her brows.

A girl felt a sense of power, even as she could not see, even as he could have crushed her between his hands.

And so she moved her forehead away from his mouth and angled her chin up, feeling his lips bump against her nose and finally rest near her mouth.

They breathed the same air.

And Jaqen stepped back.

He handed her the staff.

“Again.”

 

\--

He had beaten her, almost bloody, but it was not with the same vitriol that the waif had given earlier, without the same sense of wrath driving each blow to sting more than it would have.  She felt the sweat running down her face.

She had to release the feelings that she had while she fought against him, the voice murmuring instructions; how to hold the staff, how to anticipate each footfall, the best way to strike without her sight.

She bent over, panting, and feeling the sting of sweat and blood run into her useless eyes.

“Very well.  Come.”

A finger, touching one of her fingers, the least contact that he could have with her, and he led her out of the training room.  

Having him guide her was a luxury beyond imagination and she carefully kept her finger against his, as if too much pressure would force it to fly away.

She felt the incline of the steps and realized.

_ He was taking her again to the baths, to be cleaned. _

 

\--

 

The hiss of the heating stone meeting the water, and Arya hummed with impatience. The great baths were deep enough for her to rest in, the stone tub with a ledge around it for sitting.  Arya removed her own cloak boldly and let it fall, moving it away from the splash of the water.  

She reached for the ledge of the tub and eased her body in.  The water was too hot; she’d seen her skin pink from it before, and she wondered if she was doubly pink now.

He’d been silent, and the scent of the water obscured his presence from her.

She almost waited for him to scrub her again and then chided herself silently.   _Sweaty, and bloody, that’s why you’re here._  She splashed some water over herself and reached out for a rag to wipe herself with.

And the sound of something entering the water stopped her.

 

He was in the bath with her.

 

She continued, unfroze herself, carried on as if she hadn’t noticed.  Until she felt his fingertips brush up against her feet, and felt something move against her legs, parting them, his body cleaving her and suddenly up against her.

“A girl has courage.”  

She felt soft hairs, the musculature of his abdomen, brush against the mound of her, move up over her belly and his weight pressing on her. 

She sucked her breath in, and as if he heard the sound his lips were upon hers, again.

He was kissing her as if he wanted to eat her, the feeling of his lips punctuated by his teeth, his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth and without thinking, artlessly she moved her body up against his, feeling the cool slide of her small breasts up against him, the heat of her seeking his own.

It was something she’d never experienced for, some strange hunger she did not know how to sate, and she reached for his lips as though it were the only thing that could.  Something she had not know she wanted and now she keened for it, desperate for it. 

He pulled back from her and she whined from the lack of him, settling when she felt the roughness of his fingertip around her nipple, circling it slowly. 

This, this she had never felt, the strangeness of his hands on her, her mind moving only to where his fingertips touched her, that heat washing over her, and she bucked her hips to get more of whatever sensation he was creating. 

His fingertip moved torturously lower and dipped into her, into the secret part of her, and colors broke through the gray behind her eyes, and a noise came out of her throat that was not familiar, moving her hips up to take more of his finger in.

Her movement broke the spell and he pulled his hand away, pulled himself away, the swirling of the water the only thing that remained of what had just been.

His breathing was ragged and his voice was the only thing that touched her, the only thing that existed right then and there.

“A man can...not. A girl must make a choice when she is whole, when she has her eyes.”

She whined. “Jaqen…”

His voice became curt.  “Jaqen is dead.”

_ Jaqen is dead.  _

“A girl will not fail at her next tasks.  And then she will truly be ready.”

His voice lowered further and it was straining against himself, shaking against the low tones, barely scraping the bottom of the floor and she moved to hear it. 

“And when a girl is ready, a man will take her, take his brave girl the way that he has wanted to.”

The sound of his body raising out of the water, the sound of his steps padding across the room, the faintest whiff of ginger rising over the lavender and lemongrass of the bath, and she felt his presence recede.

She was alone again.

_ Jaqen….was… _

She realized that she was panting and she allowed her hand to move lower, to part the warm water and touch where he had, where his finger had entered her, pulsing and slick already, where her own fingers had moved against herself in the gray, dark night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * trying to practice restraint *


	4. Chapter 4

Perhaps it had been a dream, a dream of comfort, born of a need to guard her from the nightmares that came only from living in the gray fog of blindness.

Arya did not know any more.

She continued her training.

 

Potions, potions was perhaps the hardest, for her nose had to recognize the acrid and bitter scents, and the too sweet ones, and take the correct amount of powder, and listen where she thought perhaps she should hear a bubbling, and feel for the moment that the substances reacted and heated themselves, becoming something else.

She had to suffer through the waif as she created her potions, sullen and disapproving, and Arya knew that if there was any way that the waif could have poured everything down her throat, open her mouth and ignored her gurgling, that she would have; Arya could imagine the cruel smile on her face as she did so.

The only saving grace that the waif had was her loyalty to the house of Black and White, and as long as Arya was protected by the charm of her training, she only feared the thousand hurts that the waif would deliver.

Not her own life.

The waif would pinch her if she picked the wrong powder; teased her after she bloodied her nose and had to start over on a complicated potion.  She’d move things around on the floor in hopes that Arya would fall again; after the first time Arya had grown wary and now moved in the potion-room slowly, with arms and legs braced to save herself.

 

It was better, once the waif would leave.

The rhythm of mixing each poison together, the delicate concentration on each powder, each liquid, the satisfaction of hearing something bubble when it was supposed to, something steam when steam was called for.

She was learning.

There was no room for mistakes.

 

\--

She knew he would watch her, at first at the back of the room and then closer.

She didn’t allow her face to betray her, didn’t show him that she knew he was in the room. 

If a girl needed to be ready...well, it did not make much sense to try to do a thing before its time.  She would wait, she would work, just as she had and soon she would be ready. So she braced against the sparking that her body felt, the way her skin seemed to sense every draft of air as if it was his touch.  She would wait. 

_For Jaqen to take her._

It was amazing that something she had not known she needed, not known the words for, had become entirely an obsession in the space of a moon.

He would watch her, he would wait, but he did not come back to her.

 

\--

 

At night was when she thought of him the most, after she had finished her training and would either fall into the bed tired from the fear of chemicals working against each other, or with muscles aching from a particularly difficult beating from the waif.

She supposed that this was her new landscape: she was blind, as she always would be and always had been.  And she was merely his student, as she always would be, always had been.  

Having her sight, having him treat her with tenderness - with more than that, with something that she would have called desire, if she had known what that looked like - perhaps that was all a dream.

It certainly did not seem real, as she helped wash the bodies of those who had received the gift from the Many Faced God.

It did not seem real, as she worked in the hall of faces, cleaning and straightening faces, their open mouths in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the day a Faceless man would need to assume them, to relive their lives, so as to complete the cycle that the Many Faced God required.

So during the day she bent her head and worked quietly, diligently, allowing the waif’s taunts to roll off of her; performing her duties with neither disinterest nor fervor.  She performed them as no one.

When she was truly no one, it did not matter if she ever changed; she caught in the loop of no one, and if she did not think, it was pleasant: it was as it should be.

And at night, after the chain of names left her lips unbidden, after her sightless eyes had closed, she allowed the sight of him to enter her mind, and she stilled the noises that rose from her belly as she reached her hands down the cleft of her, her breath hissing out of her mouth, frantically searching for something that she did not know. 

And she did not know how anything should be, but that there was a seething want that she could not understand, could not fulfill on her own.

 

\--

 

She had succeeded.  She had trained for weeks in the cool room, rife with the bitter scents of all of the lives that would be given the gift by the potions she had created, successfully, by using only her sense of smell, her sense of touch.  She knew he stood behind her more and more.  She felt it as surely as she felt the glass and metal in her hands.

She did not speak to him.  For if he had truly wanted to, he could have walked up to her, laid one of those huge hands on her neck, traced the line of her neck down to the rough of her robes.

He did not.

 

Jaqen H’ghar was dead.

 

And so she worked to please whatever entity prowled in the room, always on the outside of the fog, with only the scent of cloves and leather and skin to mark his presence.

The waif was displeased at her progress.

They played the lying game more and more, sitting cross legged in the training room, her heavy staff replaced by a whipcord sharp switch.

The waif seemed to like these games; each question more pointed than the first.

 

“Tell me about Arya Stark,” she’d say; Arya could always imagine her head tilted back, the satisfied look on her face, the quick muscles in her arm as she whipped the switch over Arya’s face and hands if the answer did not please her.

Arya disassociated with the girl she had been, she told the story of this Arya Stark dispassionately.  The names of her mother, her father had once been wrapped in the sweet summer sunlight and cottonwool of her youth, in the leaves and grass green of Winterfell, in the red sticky sap of the weirwood tree.

Now they fell from her lips, syllables unrelated to anything, answers she must give as if reciting something to Septa Mordane, another person that this Arya Stark had encountered in another lifetime.

Still the waif hit her, over and over again.

Arya would simply wait, and start to recite again once she had regained breath.

The list of names seemed to be of particular interest to the waif.  There was a swagger in her voice, a lilt of sarcasm.  She made Arya recite the list over and over, mercilessly hitting her face, her eyes as she spoke of the Hound.

“Did she not want him dead any longer?” The waif’s mirth was joyless, clinical, craven.

“She did and she did not.”

“She sounds very confused.” Arya knew she would pay for that confusion, pay for that over and over again with welts on her skin.  Her thoughts of the Hound were not black and white, they were gray as the vision that surrounded her and the waif was not worthy to hear the nuances around that huge man that had both stolen and saved her, captured her and taught her.

The one who did not receive mercy at her own hand.

Arya shook the vision of him, dying, out of her head.

“Who else is on Arya Stark’s funny little list?” If Arya could have, she would have reached over to gauge the waif’s eyes out, to tear at that smile, pull her face on the ground and bash it over and over against the stones.  She would have done anything to have her sight back to see the blood run out of her nose and her mouth, staining the blond hair, those ice blue eyes never seeing again, those wicked hands never wielding another staff again.

A girl straightened and answered.  At the last the waif seemed discomfited.

“That’s a short list. That can’t be everyone you want to kill. Are you sure you’re not forgetting someone?”

Arya breathed in and could not stop the smallest hint of a smirk from coming to her mouth.

“Which name would you like a girl to speak?”

 

\--

 

She was able to defend herself, more and more, from the onslaught of blows when they practiced on the tablet.  She could feel the wounds on her face, the puffing of bruises and the fever of the open cuts that she’d received.  But it was just pain, and pain existed in everyone, and was only a thing of the body.  It was either temporal and fading or it would linger and fester, but it did not matter.

And so each time she hit the ground she would rise again and concentrate on the footfalls of her opponent, how hard or soft she’d strike, the way that the air would rise or the whuffing of her breath if Arya’s staff got too close.

\--

 

At last came a day when Arya did not fall at all.  She heard the waif’s frustration, felt it vibrate against her own staff when she blocked blow after blow, hours of training.  She had taken the waif down, thrice, and stood against her renewed fury when she rose.

He entered the room.  And unable to put Arya down in front of him, the waif stormed off.

He stood there, assessing her.

Arya stood as tall as she could and kept her staff in ready position, trying to still her breathing, the exertion from hours of fighting written on her arms, written on the muscles of her legs.

She was aware that he was steps away from her, that in his form was the magic and heat that could wrap around her in a single breath, that there were places that his hands could find that would open her like a flower, blooming.

She bent her head against the thought.

He turned to leave the chamber and paused as he stood in the threshold.

“Come.”

She followed.

Months of blindness had sured her steps in the house of Black and White; she knew every gap between the stones, could hear the way her footfalls echoed whether a door was closed or open ahead of her, could tell whether it was in the middle of the day or in blackest night by the sounds that came out of the temple.

He was taking her to the pools, to the place where many would come to receive the gift that only the Many Faced God could provide.

She settled in front of the weirwood god, the old gods, out of habit.

 

Jaqen must have been watching her, waiting for something in her visage to change. It did not.

“If a girl speaks her name, I will give her eyes back.”

She did not need her eyes.  She did not need to see to be able to feel, to know.

“A girl has no name.”

That must have pleased him for he bade her join him on the ledge of the pool.

She heard the cool stone clank of a cup dip into the water, the water that had given the gift to so many.

He held it out to her.

_Had she not pleased him?  Was it time for her to receive the gift?_

She hesitated.  So many had felt this cup, the last thing in their hands before crumpling onto the floor, before their bodies were prepared and cleansed, before their faces were removed as an offering to the Many Faced God.

He sensed it. “If a girl is truly no one, she has nothing to fear.”

So be it.

She opened her mouth and allowed the liquid to trickle into her mouth, screwing her eyes against a bitter taste that did not come, the only sensation on her tongue a sweet, wistful one, tinged with pine and snow.

 

She held the cup against her mouth, the taste reminding her of someone else’s life, so long ago.

 

When she opened her eyes she found she could see.

The gray did not dissolve, it simply was no longer.  The temple was dark and yet she could see the flicker of candles around each of the gods, the dull stone tinged with warmth, his face in front of her, eyes burning into hers, a smile spreading across his lips and stopping before it moved past the corner of his mouth, the pink full bottom lip trembling.

“Who are you?” He was prodding, the familiar question an embrace around her, heard in her dreams and in her waking days, wrapping around her like a warm silk ribbon, like a rope around her throat, like his fingertips and the strong meat of his thumb had.

She held his gaze, allowed her eyes to burn back at his, into the gold and green canyons of his irises, into the deep velvet black pupils.

“No one.” Her voice did not quaver.

They sat, staring, Arya remembering everything and storing these sights into her memory; his face so familiar, yet his gaze different. Candles guttered around them as minutes ticked into hours, as her back stiffened without the ease of moving.  She could not break his gaze and he would not break hers.

A woman, finally, shuffled into the temple, crying softly.  Jaqen gave an imperceptible nod to her and Arya stood, her muscles fighting to stand.  Arya approached the woman and dipped a stone cup into the waters of the pool; watching the hopes and dreams and fears of the woman become nothing as the water dripped down her throat.

The woman crumpled at Arya’s feet.

Arya stood to take her body down to the catacombs where the dead were cleansed.

“Leave it.” His voice was tinged with something she did not understand, and he rose and walked towards the hall.

 

\--

 

Following him she realized that in her blindness she had made him both smaller and larger than he was; he was a cloud, he was ephemeral and then solid in the grey.  With her sight she realized _he is just a man._ And a man’s legs stepped in front of her, each footfall quaking his broad shoulder, each lock of his hair moving in time with his steps.

He walked into her cell and lit each candle, all of them unused since her sight had left her.

The room was ablaze and Arya had forgotten the beauty in it, the candlelight flickering against the stone.  

She stopped when he did and he turned to her.

His finger glanced on her shoulder and she felt the dark robe fall away, leaving her in the thin robe she wore under they gray.

“Who are you.”

“No one.”

A finger moved under the curve of her breast, protected if at all by the thin fabric of the gauzy robe.

No one stiffened against his touch, and now she could see him, see his face as he touched her, his eyes focusing on the roundness, following the trace of his finger.

She saw a movement in his throat as he swallowed, saw the muscles in his jaw tighten as his finger moved.

All of these things she could not divine in the gray and a complete picture of him in front of her came to be.

 

It was maddening.

 

He pulled his hand away and Arya had to screw her eyes up to stop her mouth from moving, to stop her lips from saying words that no one would not say, stop words that did not come from the tops of her thoughts but rather from the lush hot planes of her body, suddenly afire.

“Has a girl truly given up her hopes and dreams, her loves and hates to become no one?”

He laughed, a short, mean thing; she did not know if it was at her or himself, it was gone before she could understand.

“A girl wants nothing.” Her voice quavered and even she knew it was untrue.

“A lie.” His voice hissed. “Get down, Arya Stark, onto the floor.”

Arya knelt in front of him and he pushed her head down until she was on her hands and knees.

He pushed the robe over her, exposing her small clothes, and one finger hitched around the waist of them and she felt them fall against the skin of her calves.  She was exposed, the most intimate part of her in front of him.

 

He had never done this before.

 

She tried not to quake, out of fear and something else, tried to suppress a heat that seemed to emanate from her.

“A girl lies.  She tries to become no one but her hopes are written all over her face.”

 _Thwack._  His hand smacked upon her rear, catching the roundness of her ass, stinging.

She gasped. It hurt and it felt good and she did not know if she wanted him to stop or to hit her again and again, his blow vibrating through her body and centering just below where he had landed it.

He groaned and Arya knew.  She wanted him to do it again. And so did he.

_Jaqen H’ghar wanted this._

Without stopping herself the words came out.

“You want it, too. You have hates and loves. You do. You lie.”

His hand again, so hard against her; she steeled her back against the blow, leaned into his hand, too brief a contact to feel whether it was hot or cold, and on his third blow he rested his hand where it had hit her and she felt the skin beneath pulsing in response to the pain.

“A girl does not know what she says.”  The words were a growl. The fingertips moved, mercifully, gently, over the skin he had savaged.

“Jaqen H’ghar. You are Jaqen H’ghar.”  He was, she knew it, and at that moment she wanted him to be so, and so he was.

The hand was no longer gentle, and the fingers moved down the cleft of her and she felt one finger roughly insert into her; she realized that he was able to slide it in easily for she was already wet for him, and she cursed herself for the readiness of her body, for the responsiveness.

 

_A girl does want._

 

He had hooked her, cruelly, and his finger started to move in and out of her, torturously filing and stretching her and then receding, a cruel tide only coming back in viciously, harder than she’d ever touched herself.

She bit her lip and braced against his finger and found her hips starting to rut against it, and she heard a sound come from him that was part anger, part something else, and suddenly he had flipped her with his other hand, finger still working up into her as she landed on her back.

She could see him and his eyes were narrowed, dark, and he watched the finger move in and out of her with fascination, with ferocity, only looking up at her face as her want hummed out of her mouth, as she felt her body start to vibrate.

“Always more courage than sense, Arya Stark.” He swore the name and as it fell from his lips he moved his mouth down where his fingers were, those lips catching around the little crown of nerves, covering it with the warmth and wetness of his tongue, capturing it and sucking with a fierceness that she had not seen from him.

And as if she was blind again, all went grey, and she closed her eyes against the sensation and let herself become no one, let everything else fall away.

Nothing existed except her his tongue touched her, the harsh unyielding stone underneath her, nothing moved except his fingers exploring the inside of her, huge and curling up as they moved, herself capturing and stretching around them, each exploration both painful and achingly sweet. It was at once a domination and a worship and she would never know if she was a slave or a deity and she did not care. 

She was climbing something she did not know had been in front of her and she felt a pressure building around him, and as the suction of his mouth on her became too much; she felt it release in an agony that she never wanted to end and she stifled the noise that came from her, feeling a wetness wash from her around his mouth.  He grunted and lapped it, his tongue gently licking every trace of her, every canyon, pointing and softening to pull it into his mouth.

She panted and nearly cried as his fingers came out of her, touching the too-sensitive bud of her, and she opened her mouth as he poked them against  her lips.

She was tasting herself, and his fingers were salty and sweet with a tang of something that she did not know she possessed.

She lay there until her breathing steadied, until she was aware of the room around her, his figure next to her, opening her eyes to see him intently watching her, curious and dark and something else, some other spark of the Jaqen that she had known and not known when she was just a child.

He leaned over her and kissed her.  The sweet salty taste was in his mouth, on his lips and in the golden hairs above his lips and she fed on it, fed on him and his tongue and all the rest of him, rising to meet him when he pulled away.

His face was inches from hers and he dropped his head and gazed at her, upwards through his eyelashes, a strangely obedient stance for one who had just held her entire being at the point of his tongue.

“The Many Faced God has a new name.  Tomorrow you will serve him.”

She nodded.  Of course. No one. She had duties.

His hand traveled down his robe and she noticed for the first time a darkening, a wettening on himself, a bulge in the fabric where there had been none before.

“Tonight, however, you will serve a man.”

He picked her up and in his arms she noted the scent of cloves and ginger had been pushed aside by the smell of his skin, of her, and she breathed in, saved it to no one’s memories as he placed her almost tenderly on her cot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well...


	5. Chapter 5

_Jaqen H’ghar was not dead._

 

This was not the Jaqen that Arya knew from Harrenhal.  The again, he was not no one. No one did not want.

This Jaqen looked like wanted to feed on her, looked like his mouth was assessing the ripest parts of her, hypervigilant to every movement she made.

But then again, she was not Arya Stark.

She knew. She could see - _she could see!_ \- the shadow of herself under the robe, the darkness of her sex, the hollow of her belly and the indention of her navel.  The fabric tented under her breasts and she watched him focus on the movement of her breasts as she breathed.

And she could feel, as well, that she was not no one.

And he could see as well.

“A girl becomes a woman, all of this passes under a man’s eyes like water,” he breathed, moving his eyes up to her face and with feathertouch traced underneath her chin and up around her cheekbones.

“Valar Morghulis.” The words came out of her mouth, and to her, they fit. She was a child when she met him, she was becoming a woman and soon she would die. And so would he.

And the stardust of what had already happened mixed with the promise of what might would imprint on their bones, on their faces and ebb away later as time flowed by.

He smiled, and this time he showed the edges of his teeth, glittering in the candlelight.

“Valar dohaeris,” and as soon as the words left his mouth he had gripped his robe and pulled himself out of it in a fluid motion, as if he’d been boneless and the robe was merely an annoyance.

Arya had seen him before, seen him in training, seen him in the baths.

But she had never seen him before through these eyes that had been made sharper, more observant by the pulse in her belly.

His skin was golden and his back darker, his belly fading to a lighter shade.  She could have traced the scars on his back the way she had traced the maps of Westeros when she was a child, each river meeting another, tributary upon tributary branching off.

She wriggled. It was too much. 

He started to tug the robe over her and pushed her back down and the air kissed her skin as it was bared.

 

They stared.

 

Arya Stark would have felt uncomfortable.  Arya Stark had always been the plainest in her family; _a pity she doesn’t have the Tully look._

 _This_ girl felt brazen and as unashamed of her skin as a fish its scales, as a cat its fur.

He moved over her and kept his body close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his skin but too far to touch and rested his weight on his elbows and knees over her.

She looked down and saw him swollen and she stared, fascinated.  The end of him thudded across her belly, the only part of him touching her, and her insides flipped like the mummers on poles in Braavos.

“Does a girl wish for this?” His voice was low, and when she looked back up she saw his face, his eyes more widely open, less feral than before.

“A girl does.” Arya wanted to melt into him, to allow her bones and skin to become him, for her eyes to see as his did, for her mouth to taste only him.  To consume and be consumed.

This test was not passed by denying the self. No, this test would be passed by embracing it, in whatever form it found itself in the moment.

And her form, the white arms of this self, reached down out of a dark curiousity to touch the edge of him, to grasp him and bring him in hand.

It was warmer than the rest of him, it was softer than she expected and harder, too, as if he was suddenly made of iron.

At her touch he groaned and moved into her hand, and she explored it with her palm and open fingers, walking them across the tip of him, tracing circles around the ridge of him and down the bottom where a great vein ran from tip to root.  Her fingers nestled in the hair and found his testicles, gripping them and then running back up to the shaft where her other hand had started to match a rhythm that his hips started to create.

His noise.  The low voice was one thing, but this noise was not human, part demon and part animal and she could feel it rippling out from his belly and through his throat, onto her.

She saw what made him noisier and moved her hands accordingly, fascinated by the feeling of him and the reaction of him, out of control, for the first time that she had known him.

 

It was a strange power.

 

She gripped him more tightly and he responded, and with one hand she nudged him to get on his back.  

He stood on his own, the sight of him rising above the lines of his thighs and Arya’s hand moved back as quickly as it could, the soft warmth of him irresistible.

Something was happening, his body was moving in unfamiliar ways, his noises alien and Arya noticed that the slit at the very tip of him was wettened.

She used her hand to steady him and placed her tongue over it, tasting it: bitter like the poisons, salty like her sweat, and something else.

And that something else drove her other hand lower, and she put her mouth over him and touched herself, watching him strain underneath her until he grabbed her hair and bucked, unceremoniously and unpredictably, a green horse with a new rider, bucked himself deeper into her mouth and let out a strangled growl, filling her mouth with the bitterness, the saltiness of him and exhaling, unclenching underneath her.

She grimaced and swallowed most of it, drinking him, feeling some run down her face and at the sight of it he groaned again and pulled her to him, his tongue finding his own remnants and licking them off of her, kissing her mouth so that the bitter was chased by the clove of his mouth, and his arms circled her tightly as he did so, crushing her head up against his mouth as if he never cared if she breathed again.

The motion of his breathing was changing, slowing, and his heart was thundering and then slowing under her.

She felt the iron start to soften under her, sticky still, and she shuddered.

He clung to her, clenching her tightly to him, and they lay together until his breathing slowed.

 

\---

 

She didn’t know what this was but she knew it was different; it was like killing someone and bringing them back to life, it was like learning all of their most important secrets and sharing her own.

It was its own secret, for Arya knew that none of the other Faceless Men had ever looked at her in the same way, as though she was both divine and base; something to put in their mouth and savor the taste of.  

And so she let those thoughts whirl around in her head and finally found words to speak to him of it.

“Why does a man want this girl?”  Her voice was also low, for when she opened her mouth to use it she found that he had still stolen her breath, that she was still shaky from the act of him underneath her, the taste of him.

“Mmmm?”  He looked up at her and then rolled to his side, placing a hand so large that it almost covered the entire side of her head.

“A girl is strong and brave and yet know not how strong she is.  A man has waited for a sixty moons, almost, to have her.  And soon a girl will face her greatest test.”  He sighed.

“And a girl is right. A man is not no one. A man wants. A man sees, and wants to keep her.”

Arya bit her lip; his mien had changed and a shadow rolled over it, more serious than she had anticipated.  She put her face right against his ear, exactly the same way she had when she was a child, when she had whispered the names to him.

“Perhaps a girl will let him.”

 

\--

 

He was still there in the morning.  Arya had not felt  his fearsomeness in her hands again, although he had fallen asleep with one arm around her waist, and one hand tucked into her cleft; she had shimmied up against him in her sleep and he had used his fingers to bring her to somewhere that she could not divine was in the waking or the dream realm, and she had not cared to find out, riding out the waves on his fingers and letting him clutch against her, cover her in his weight and his scent.

But when he finally woke his face was grave and his eyes looked concerned.

“A girl should prepare herself.  The Many Faced God has received a new name, and this will be a girl’s mission, a test.  And now a girl has enemies that wish to see her fail.”

She sat, silently, at that; bowing her head and wondering who she would be, who she would assume for this mission.

His face edged closer to hers and she watched his lips until they moved out of her sight and met her own.

“A girl will not fail.” He breathed his confidence into her, and he slid his tongue into her mouth, playing at the edges of her lips and cruelly taking it from her as quickly as it was given.

“A girl will not fail, and she will return to a man.”

  
He rose and put his robe on, straightened himself, and turned and walked out of her cell, pulling the door closed again behind him.


	6. Chapter 6

“You’re not ready.”

The waif stared over Arya’s panting face, after knocking her off her feet for the sixth time today.  Arya may have bested her yesterday, but today she was an electrical storm fuel of vitriol, hate feeding into a frenzy and there was nowhere that Arya could turn where her staff did not meet her.

Each time Arya fell to the ground she would spring back up, and each time she would meet the edge of the waif’s staff, hitting as hard as she could.

“You should go home before it’s too late.”  

Her voice was taunting, cold, and she cocked her head and kept it cocked as she moved towards Arya.

It had almost been easier to fight her without her sight, without the image of this small woman’s hatred in front of her, bearing down on her.

“You’ll never be one of us, Lady Stark.”  A final smirk and the waif rested her staff just above her throat; a killing blow, if outside the training chamber.

Jaqen walked in and the waif’s face screwed up with rage at Arya.  Arya skittered to her feet, bowing her head, supplicant.

_Whatever happened last night was not to be brought here._

And whatever tenderness, whatever dark secrets they had shared were gone, blown away by the light of day.  Jaqen lifted an eyebrow at Arya.  “She has a point.”

Jaqen didn't look at the waif as she stormed out.  Arya realized he had never looked at the waif, never looked at her as he had with Arya.

His words stung all the same.

He turned to walk out of the chamber and motioned her to follow.  The walked in silence until they reached the hall of faces.

Jaqen reached one of the innermost pillars and stopped, sighing as he looked at her.  “None of the first faceless men were born to lords and ladies. They began as slaves, in the mines of Valyria.”

“Who was the first?” Arya heard the wistfulness in his voice and kept her head down when she was not looking up at the faces.  

She became no one, and listened to him. It was a rare thing, a special thing, to hear him talk about the Faceless Men, beyond the normal day to day instruction.

“He was no one. The Many Faced God taught him how to shed his face, and how to give the gift.  A man told others in exchange for their service. Many served, many more gifts were given. Soon all of the masters and overseers were gone and the Faceless Men fled.”  He was staring up at the pillar intently.

“Where did they go?”

“Here.” He gestured around them, all of the faces, all of the columns, everything wrapped in the stillness of the end of life. “They founded the free city of Braavos. Built this house. These were the faces they wore in life, when they were not wearing others.  The first faceless men. And now a girl is one of them. If a girl desires.”

His voice flickered at the end, but Arya did not want to step away from herself, step away from no one.  She had duties.

“A girl has no desires.”  A lie. 

He held out a flagon, one of the potions she had just rendered; she recognized it by the irregularity of the handle, the bump of a glass bubble under the surface. His eyes burned her, pinned her, and his next words were tinged with sadness.

She grabbed the flagon, felt the glass under her fingertips; _just as she remembered._  

She had been given her mission. The flagon suddenly felt heavy in her hands.  “Who?”

“An actress. Calls herself Lady Crane. Performs at the theater in the square.”

He cleared his throat and reached a hand out to her; she could not tell if there was tenderness in his touch or it was lethal; his hand brushed underneath her chin, wrapping under her jaw.  She was rendered immobile, alive only at his whim.  

“A girl has been given a second chance. There will not be a third,” he said, and his voice burned into her. _Jaqen H’ghar was dead._

He released his hand.  “One way or another, a face will be added to the hall.”

She turned, obedient, to walk out the door, to get started.  His voice stopped her, naked need in it.

“A girl must not fail. The consequences are dire.”

_Jaqen H’ghar is..._

No one nodded, and continued out the door.

 

\--

The performance was in the square, a rag tag company performing, the sets moving on and off stage pulled by helpers dressed in gray.  

Arya had wound her hair up and put on Braavosi common dress, not too fine to be conspicuous, and slipped amongst the crowds, wending her way to the square and settling in the audience. 

As the first words of the performance started, she hushed: _the performance was about the Iron throne, the performance is from Westeros._

_This story is about my family._

No one flinched.

Ned Stark was on stage, and the caricature of Ned Stark was too much for her to bear.   _Traitor!_ the crowd called, and this time Arya watched the fake death of her father, a papier mache head tossed onto stage, the satisfied murmurings of the crowd as Joffrey held it up.

_This time I see. This time no one can cover my face, protect me from his death._

No one did not care, but Arya Stark could not stop watching what she had been shielded from a lifetime ago.

Lady Crane was her target.  She was the lead actress in the performance. Cersei Lannister. The name changed from ash in her mouth to flesh and blood.

Arya supposed that it was fitting that she be able to give a Cersei Lannister the gift.

She watched Lady Crane on stage. She was magnetic; the crowd couldn’t keep their eyes off of her. Arya could stop watching her, each word captivating her. 

She slipped into the back of the production after it was over, watching the actors take their wigs off, critique the crowd, holding a bundle of costumes to get closer to Lady Crane.

The woman was laughing as she pulled off the blond wig of Cersei. She reassured one of the other actors as the others critiqued her performance, she let out a warm throaty laugh as the others cut one of the other actresses down and then built her back up.  She was a flower growing in a field of grass, she was an outstretched hand to one who was drowning.  She was humanity in a room full of ego and bluster. 

Lady Crane was the star, and Lady Crane was the warmth that the entire crew gravitated towards.  And Lady Crane was the only person in the crew who drank from a dark bottle of rum, sitting on her dressing table.

Arya slipped out before she was noticed and made her way back to the House of Black and White.

 

\--

 

She had changed into her robes, and was sitting at the edge of her bed unwinding her hair when the door opened and closed.

He turned once the door was shut and faced her.

“Well?”  He cocked his head towards her, standing still as a statue.

“Lady Crane drinks rum after her performance while the others drink wine.”

No one knew how she would give the Many Faced God what was his.  She would slip behind the stage after tomorrow’s show, and she would empty the flagon that she had so carefully filled before she got her eyes back.

“Tomorrow.” Arya nodded at him and turned her attention back to pulling her hair from the tight rolls into shimmering dark waves.

He was silent, and quick and flew across the room, a shadow alighting in front of her.

_Jaqen H’ghar is not…_

He put his fingers in her hair and pulled her face close to his, so that their eyes met.

“A girl _can not_ fail.”

There was something fierce in his voice and before she could react he had covered her mouth with his lips, and there was a mournful quality to his kisses, a tenderness that had not made it into his voice.

He pulled her robe off and stood her in front of him, kissing her skin as the fabric left it bare, moving his tongue across her and stopping to kiss the top of her navel, the crook of her elbow, the insides of her thighs and her body reacted, the dark warmth of her sex, her skin prickling as singing for his mouth to lave her.

He was shuddering and she felt herself grow warmer and warmer, wishing that his mouth could be everywhere upon her, and she reached her hands into the coarse waves of his hair to move his mouth towards her center.

And he obliged, and the warmth that came from his tongue had met her own, and she gripped his hair to keep her legs from falling out from underneath her, from disobeying her own will to stand.

He felt her knees start to buckle and he lifted her as if she were a kitten, a light little thing, and moved her over to her bed.

His mouth was blood magic, it had to have been. Nothing could feel this good, nothing ever.

She could feel, somewhere, his fingers kneading into the soft skin of her hips, she felt him grab the bone to pull her closer into his mouth, and she could hear herself, noises coming out of her throat that she did not understand, the syllables melting and falling off her tongue.

And just as she was falling, falling down into the heat that he had created, falling from the lack of her bones, falling into a blinding white cloud she said his name.

 

“Jaqen.”

 

And he stopped.

 

He pulled back from her as if she had whipped him, took his mouth away, and she had to quiet a whine rising from her belly.

_Come back to me._

He stood and pulled his robe over his head and she saw the symmetry of his body, his erection jutting out in front of her.

His fingers were rough when they came back to her, and he pushed himself up against her; she felt that hardness moving up where his mouth had been, where his fingers had touched.  She was pinned under him, and there was nothing soft about him now; the long bands of muscles in his arms up against her like stone, the end of him poking at her softness.

His face was hard and she would have done anything to get him to transform back into the man whose lips had plundered her.

He moved so that the head of him rested right up against her and she stopped herself from angling her hips to capture him.

And something broke, something broke inside of him and she felt that hardness reach into her, stretch her painfully, push against the barrier inside of her and then a flood of warmth as he started to rock in and out of her.

It was pain and it was pleasure and his face showed neither as he watched the movements of her, her whole body at the whim of his cock.

He thrusted, over and over, against her deepest secrets and the pain subsided and she felt herself cling to him inside of her.

He buried himself as deeply as she could and Arya bit her lip to stop the pain, feeling blood run through her teeth and start to drip down her chin.

She licked at it.

When he saw her tongue he stopped and raised his shoulders up to see her better.

“Who are you.”

Arya quivered and tried to answer without moaning, pushing the words out in a huff of breath instead.

“No one,” she whispered and she knew it was a lie.

His eyes lit up and he pulled himself out of her, torturously; he had emptied her and she needed him back in her, needed him to sheath himself in her.  She had answered wrong.  Something was wrong.

He asked again, holding himself back, and Arya could see his arms trembling from the effort.  “Who are you.”

Arya reached up to kiss him but his lips did not meet hers, and she was trapped underneath him, trapped so close and so far away from the center of him.

“No one.” She sang the words, fierce, the bloodlust rising to her mouth, her voice strong and sure. 

At that he entered her again, and moved his whole body to fill her, his throat rumbling when he was as deep into her as he could get and her whimpers when he’d recede, and suddenly he started to move more wildly, and she gripped him to keep him in her and felt herself reach that edge again and dug into him as he frantically pumped into her, his seed washing inside of her, quivering as he gained his breath and slowed his breathing.

And wrapped himself completely around her, a vine clinging, intertwined.

When his heartbeat stopped hammering against her breast, when the waves of his breath had steadied, when she felt his cock soft and comforting inside of her he raised his head and spoke.

“A girl is still Arya Stark. But tomorrow she can not fail. She must be no one, or the gift will be given to her as well.”

He placed his head back against her and clung, gripping her so tightly that she knew the marks would bloom purple on her skin in the morning light.

And even as his breathing moved to the even softness of one fast asleep, she stared at the ceiling, feeling his weight upon her.

_A girl is Arya Stark._


	7. Chapter 7

It felt good, to have him with her, his weight upon her; it felt safe and warm and for the first time since she had lost her parents she felt the balm of human companionship, realized what she had not had for so long.

_No one does not have this._

She did not mean for her hands to move but the expanse of his skin over hers called for her fingertips to trail over it; in the dark she felt the furrows of the scars on his back and traced the lines around the planes of his shoulder blades, into the valley of his spine and the great expanse of his lower back.

He stirred and his arms seized around her and softened again and she could smell the breath of him lingering around her throat.

His mouth opened on her throat and warm wetness marked the juncture where her neck and collarbone met the tip of his tongue.

He kissed upwards and lingered, his tongue licking the salt of her neck and landing on her lips.  She could feel him swelling against her.

He voice was broken and rough with sleepiness, and as he kissed her he spoke, murmuring into her hair, her ear, her neck.

“If a girl fails she must not return. She must book passage across the Narrow Sea. A man does not wish to see a girl hurt.”

His insistence was puzzling.  Arya did not understand. _Had she not paid her penance for taking Meryn Trant?_ Months of blindness and the scars on her body from the waif’s tutelage lay over her skin were witness to her penitence.

She met his mouth and whispered back to him after her tongue had plunged in to find whatever other secrets he was hiding.

“Does a girl displease a man? Has a girl not given all that she is to the Many Faced God?”

Jaqen traced her lips with a fingertip as he considered.  He kissed his own fingertip and lay it again on the fullness of her bottom lip as if to silence her while he spoke.

“Mmm. A girl has given all that she _can_ to the Many Faced God.  But that is different than all that she is. A girl has many gifts to give.  She must be careful, for there are those that wish her to lose her only friend.”

 

_She had tried. She had tried so hard._

 

She had spent years in the House of Black and White. She had swept for weeks, impatiently at first and then, once rebuffed by the man who wore Jaqen’s face, found patience in the scratching of the broom on the floor.  She had washed and prepared those who had been given the gift.  She had worked in the kitchen with Umma, gathered plants and powders at the market.

She had trained relentlessly, enough of her blood left on the stone tablet to color the canals of Braavos red.  She had given her eyes.

At first all of this was to give the gift to those on her list and she recited the names fervently.  And then later, the list would fall from the surface of her mind and then bob back up suddenly, buoyed by some tide she could not see.

The waif’s voice came back to her, searing. _She sounds confused._

She hated that she was confused. That she was able to forget, to be no one, and then would be dragged to the surface of Arya Stark, the light too bright, feelings too intense.

  


He felt her lips tighten into a frown and he dipped his finger from her them and trailed down her, finding and parting her sex. She was aware of her readiness and her body followed his finger, wanting him to plunge it into her.

It rested right at the crest of her and circled the little nub that seemed to control all of her limbs.

“And a man desires to keep her.”  At that his finger gave her deliverance, and she did not, could not speak further, the thoughtforms of her words blurring into something else.

His hand continued and she winced as it became too much. He had added another finger, and then another, and she felt herself lose control, rutting against his hand.

In one fluid movement he flipped her so that she was suddenly astride him, legs akimbo, arms weak.  She felt his hands on her hips and he moved her over him and slid her slowly, slowly down on him so that she felt each inch of him, stretching against her and sliding into her readiness, gasping as she took him in and wriggling as she reached the base of him.

 _By the old gods and the new. S_ he had never felt anything like this. 

It was a different sensation, to be in control of this, and for a moment she rested on him just to feel how he fit inside of her, to look up from the point where they joined up to his face, his mouth parted slightly. The look of greed on his face, of him taking, pushed her to take more and she danced on the edge of him until she could bear it no longer.

No one, Arya Stark, someone...she was controlling this.  And Jaqen, no one, writhed underneath her, up inside of her, until she closed her eyes against the beauty of it.

 

\--

 

He kissed her the next morning, the smell of sex redolent in her small cell, him and her and whatever they had conjured up in the room covering her like an armor as she dressed in her Braavosi gear.

A plea, to him, before he left.

“If a girl could wear a face from the hall…” she started.

For some reason, she did not want to wear the face of Arya Stark, did not want to wear her hopes as she gave this Lady Crane a gift that she did not know the woman deserved.

He sighed and shook his head. “A girl is not ready.”

Then he held her face in his hands, the massive fingers running up the side of her head.

“Do your duty. And then come back to me.”

He vanished as if he never been there at all.

 

\--

 

Arya had time before the show began, and she walked down to Ragman Harbor, clutching the flagon of poison tucked into her pocket.

There was enough commotion down there for a girl to slip in and out of conversations, and she found herself following a pair of sailors who sounded like they were from Westeros, listening to their tales.

_“They say that the Queen herself blew up the Sept. That she was the only one unhurt. Wildfire.”_

_“Either she’s as evil as they come, or the Seven must have wanted her to live.”_

A girl did not want to hear about the queen.  She would see her, soon enough, on a small stage portrayed by a woman whose name death already knew.

 

\--

 

Arya found her way behind the stage easily enough, and made it in before the end of the show.  She looked at Lady Crane’s dressing chamber and stood for a moment, fingering the little trinkets on the table.

_The Many Faced God has been promised a name._

Is this justice?  Arya did not know how, or for who. He who passes the sentence wields the sword.  But what sentence had this woman been subjected to?

Jaqen’s words echoed through her head, his strange insistence, the black of his irises as he focused completely on her, tucked around her.

_A girl has been given a second chance._

She found the rum and emptied the flagon into the bottle, corking it again and started to steal out back outside towards the crowd.

 

And she was stopped by Lady Crane herself as the cast came to the chamber behind the stage.

“Girl. What are you doing here?”  The woman’s voice was firm but not unkind.

Arya froze. “Nothing.”

“I saw you the other day in the audience.  Did you pay?”  Lady Crane had a smile in her voice, like she knew the answer already.

“I remember when the the plays came to my village. I didn’t have any money, so I snuck in. Just like you. Saw the painted faces, the costumes. Listened to the songs, cried when the young lovers died in each other’s arms. I ran off the next day. Never looked back.”

Lady Crane was kind.

“You’re very good,” Arya said in a voice that came out of nowhere, words that appeared unbidden.  She....liked...Lady Crane.

“My final speech is shit. But, to be fair to myself, which I like to be, the writing’s no good.” Lady Crane started walking and Arya found herself following her.

“So change it.”  Arya felt something for this woman; she wasn’t like Catelyn Stark, she wasn’t like Sansa, she was...something else, made of stronger stuff.  “It would all just be farting, belching and slapping without you.”

Lady Crane looked at Arya, really looked at her, and for a moment Arya forgot that this was the name given to the Many Faced God.

 

“What’s your name?” Lady Crane inquired, and for the briefest moment _Arya Stark of House Winterfell_ came dangerously close to falling off of a girl’s lips.

“Mercy.”  Arya swallowed. She had to leave. The gift would be given. “My...my father’s waiting.”

She pushed past her, almost running into the actress that played Sansa.  That actress was glaring at Lady Crane with hatred sealed in a self-satisfied look and Arya realized: _she_ wants Lady Crane to get the gift.

This wasn’t justice, this was nothing. The Many Faced God did not care about Lady Crane’s name. Arya felt a welling anger. Why is she serving this deity, who takes a name because of the size of a coin given?

 

She stalked out of the area quickly and walked through the crowds.

_A girl must not fail._

The Many Faced God did not need this woman.

The Many Faced God was a lie.

Jaqen was a lie.

_Jaqen was dead._

 

Arya quickly walked back into the dressing area and saw a glass just under Lady Crane’s mouth. With a swift motion she smashed it out of her hands; the glass shattered on the floor and the actors and crew stopped and stared at Arya.

“Careful of that one,” she said, pointing at the other actress.  “She wants you dead.”

Arya walked out of the chamber, past the actors and crew and back out on the street, back out to the harbor, looking for the Westerosi sailors.    _A girl must cross the Narrow Sea._

She did not see a slight woman, pretending to carry costumes.  She did not see her head tilt as Arya walked by. She didn’t see the smile start to wrap over her lips.

Her head was spinning as she left.  Jaqen. The House of Black and White.

_Home. Winterfell._

The only thing she felt as she walked out was the cold wrap over her, quickly, as if the Many Faced God had marked her as his own.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Arya walked along the water’s edge.

 

Her thoughts were roiling, turgid like the black water at the place where the canals backed up against the edges of Braavos.

 

She tried to slip into the comfort of her list.

Each name took her one step further away from Lady Crane, one step further away from no one.  Each name kept the depths of her thoughts from surfacing, until the names could not stave them off any longer and they burst through her consciousness with such a fierceness that she stopped in her tracks and leaned up against a wall.

_The Many Faced God is a lie._

She felt her lip curl in a snarl.

_Jaqen was a lie._

Arya felt her eyes start to well and she swallowed, chewing on her lip to try to stop them and started to walk again.

The Many Faced God will not give help her kill, help her get revenge on her enemies. The Many Faced God was all a _production_ of the House of Black and White, just another way to earn coins, no better than a group of sellswords.

 _“A girl has to be no one.”_  Arya spat on the ground. Stupid, stupid Arya.

Jaqen. Arya felt a pang. What had she believed in this whole time?

That he was going to help her, save her? He was no better than a mummer, she had been tricked like the peasants watching a mummer play the game of shells, squealing their delight and disbelief at the fraud.

_But why..._

He had been so close to her, so deeply in her, like a seed in pod, like a thought in her mind.  Why would he trick her?

Stupid, stupid.

No more. She’d been a fool. It was time to get back to Westeros, to leave the House of Black and White and get back to what she was meant to do.

_Cersei Lannister. Gregor Clegane. Walder Frey._

Arya paused for a moment.

_The Waif._

Her feet must have known where to go. Arya found herself along a familiar sea wall and walked along to the edge, looking at each stone.

She moved a few out of the way and dipped her hand into the gap, ignoring the spider webs. Her fingertips bumped against something cold and hard.

_Needle._

She took the blade and kissed the flat of it, clutching the hilt to her.

_A girl is Arya Stark._

 

\--

 

Passage to Westeros would take coin. The thought of an iron coin in her hand, her little-girl-eyes full of Jaqen as some _savior_ made her stomach lurch.

But the House of Black and White has coin.

Arya stole her way back down dark alleys until she was close, and then shimmied through a tight doorway close to the baths.  She had never been more silent; Needle was clutched in her hand, and the only sound that she heard herself make was the pulse in her throat and the occasional swish of those damnable Braavosi skirts.

She was careful, careful in her cell, checking her room and then pushing the heavy wooden door shut as silently as she could, lifting the door slightly at the point where she knew it would squeak, carefully setting the iron latch down, Needle at her side.

 _First this._ She changed out of the stupid Braavosi dress and put a short cloak and some leggings on, boots.  The leggings, the boots were training pants in the House of Black and White, the cloak had belonged to some poor fool, Arya spat, that had come for mercy to the House of Black and White.

She unwound her hair with nervous fingers and tried not to think of Jaqen’s hands in the waves, looking around the room.

No One had no possessions.  But Arya Stark had Needle, and Arya Stark was about to steal a bag of coins from the great study to pay for passage across the Narrow Sea.

She turned and looked her meager room; a cot, really, in a stone room; no softness to mark it hers.  A candlabra sat on a small table next to a pitcher of water, a handful of stones that she had put in her pocket when she begged, when a girl had no eyes.

A girl had eyes now.  She closed them to turn away from the room that had housed her for these years, where she had beaten down her hopes and dreams, put them into an impossibly tiny box, thrown it into the ocean of herself.   _To hide it from him._

_Enough._

She gripped Needle and turned to the door.

Jaqen was there.

Arya looked frantically at the door; it was still bolted and had not opened.  Her breath caught.

“I’m leaving.”  She pulled Needle out and pointed it at him.  “And you can’t stop me.”

She laughed but it caught in her throat, mixed into hot tears before it made it out of her mouth, acid.

“Your god is a fraud.  And you are…”

She didn’t even know.

“The gods are not mocked.” He stood in front of her.

“Your stupid god is nothing.” Arya’s hand was shaking, Needle was shaking.

Jaqen stood in front of her, his face impassive.  She started as he raised his hand, but it went over his face.

 

_Ned Stark._

_Catelyn Stark._

_Mycah._

_Robb Stark._

_Meryn Trant._

Her own face.

 

And then Jaqen’s face, in front of her; his eyes flickered and for a moment she saw a tenderness in them that she did not want to see.

She managed a shrug, clenching her fist around Needle, trying to stop the quavering of the little blade.

He walked closer to her, bending Needle aside and not flinching when the small blade thudded back against him.

“A girl has failed.” He whispered the words to her.

Arya’s breath came sharply and for the slightest moment she wanted to fall against him, to pretend like there had been no Lady Crane, like the last day and all that she had thought never existed.

And then she straightened.

“I’m leaving.”

He caught her face in his hands and pressed his fingertips too hard against her when she started to struggle, and Arya watched as his face came closer to hers.  Ginger, cloves and skin and leather in her nose, and then his lips covered hers. Warm, soft, and his breath clung to her face.

The kiss was over just as quickly as it had started, and he looked at her again with a softening in his eyes.

“Go now girl.”  A bag of coins was pressed into her hand. “And be aware. The Many Faced God will get his due, one way or the other.”

Arya blinked at this, but he was gone, he had vanished again and she reached her hand out to open the latch, wondering at it, wondering at him, moving her body as quickly as she could all the same.

 

_Westeros._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this chapter deviates a little from s6, but I took a few liberties...might not be the last, honestly : )


	9. Chapter 9

Arya left the House of Black and White with a bag of coin in her pockets, Needle grasped in one hand and gritting her teeth.

And her eyes watching for any sign of danger, and her ears listening for no one to sneak up on her.

It was over. They were going to send a Faceless Man after her.  She’d never leave Braavos alive.

_If she didn’t have a plan._

There was an empty room, right by the base of one of the bridges.  Arya had found it one day, walking through Braavos. It had been someone’s sleeping chamber, once; Arya had paused there a few times.  It was always empty.

She hurried there now and tucked Needle away in the room.  If a Faceless Man was going to take her life, she wouldn’t let them add Needle to their chamber of bounty, weapons taken from those that had received the gift.

And if a Faceless Man tried to take her life, she wouldn’t win if they knew she had Needle with her.  She’d come back to it.

She gave one last look at where she had set the little sword and closed the door.

She spat on the ground.   _Valar Morghulis._

She headed back towards the harbor. The sailors had been there, she’d get passage to Westeros and leave all of this behind.  And the faster she could get away from the Many Faced God and his own damned list, the better.

And him. She couldn’t untangle how she felt and she let herself feel it, finally not trying to let the feelings go.  No one could ignore and suppress but Arya Stark let the hurt wash over her, let her sex throb despite her anger, let the rage move into her hands.  

Arya Stark knew that her heart had broken, and her faith.

And she was angry.

She was furious and she stalked quickly towards the sailors; she saw them sitting at a table in the throngs of people moving in and out of the ships.  She pulled a handful of coins out of one of the bags.

“You’re Westerosi.”  Arya marched up to their table.

“What do you care?” The grizzled sailor looked up and down at her.

“I want to book passage home.”  Arya stood there, as cool as she could be; as calmly as she could summon with her blood coursing through her veins, her anger simmering close to the surface, her heart ripped into shreds.

“You?” He snorted and turned away from her. “Can’t afford it.”

She threw the loose coins on the table.  She hadn’t looked at them, didn’t need to; the House of Black and White was only second to the Iron Bank of Braavos so far as riches went.

He collected the coins, golden dragons.  “Where’d you steal these from?”

Arya shrugged. “What do you care?”

He looked again at the coins. “We leave in two days. You can have a bed in steerage.”

Arya threw the bag at him. “I want a cabin and we leave at dawn.”

She smirked as his eyebrows went up, and then picked up the bag and walked off.

 

Arya walked over a bridge and saw the Titan, standing in front of her on the horizon. Arya stopped to look at it. She remembered when she first sailed under the Titan’s great legs - no, when Salty had been on the ship.  How he had seemed only as big as the statue of Baelor until the ship came up underneath them, and how she had jumped when a great noise emanated from the statue.

And how she had hoped and hoped that Jaqen would save her, would take her as his apprentice, teach her everything that he knew.

She didn’t realize that it was all a lie.

 

The Many Faced God was real; she knew Jaqen had shown her the faces to remind her.  But their service to the Many Faced God...well, that was something else.  To give those that wanted the gift was one thing; to simply murder someone because a coin was given, that was nothing like what she had learned growing up.

_He who passes the sentence will swing the sword._

The House of Black and White did not pass any sentence, there was no justice.  And without justice there was no vengeance.

It meant nothing.

Arya bit down on her lip and turned to walk away.

An old woman walked up to her, doddering steps.  “Sweet girl?” Her voice was soft and creaky like so many that had walked into the House of Black and White, looking for mercy at the end of their lives.

Arya turned to her to see what she wanted.

And a knife slashed across her belly; the old woman moved too fast.

The Many Faced God will get his due.

Arya stared as the old woman’s face contorted with rage and arms stronger than they had a right to be grabbed her and stabbed her, hot searing pain, one after the other, in her belly.

On the last stab the old woman twisted the knife, forcing it deeper into Arya and it was like a pain she had never felt before.  The crone locked her arm around Arya’s neck and then reached a hand up over her face.

The waif.

Arya panicked. She slammed her head against the waif and pushed her away; looking at the edge of the bridge she vaulted over the railing and jumped into the murky canal.

She gripped her knees, trying to make herself as heavy as possible, to sink and then swam underwater as close to the bottom as she could.  She saw ribbons of her blood drifting up to the surface and the throbbing in her gut was more painful than any day of training, than any blows she had ever felt.

When her lungs felt like they were about to burst Arya surfaced.  She was about twenty feet from the bridge.

The waif was nowhere to be seen.

Arya scrambled out of the canal, clutching herself. The blood was falling fast and thick and she felt her breathing stutter through her lungs, adrenaline keeping her upright.

She stumbled through the street, faces just looking at her, no one helping - but no waif, either, to finish her off.

Arya realized that she was next to the square where Lady Crane had performed and she slipped into the dressing area, pushing her way back through her clothes until she could not be seen.

She slipped in and out of consciousness.

She didn’t know how long it had been since she got there, vaguely realized that it was still light out.  She remembered one of the big stagehands carrying her, and they were moving up stairs.  

Lady Crane appeared as if in a dream, the light of candles flashing warm against her skin.  She had put an ointment on Arya, cleansed her wounds with something that stung - rum - and the pain of it, the different kind of pain brought Arya out of her fog.

She sat up. She must be in Lady Crane’s bed, and the woman’s soft hands were wrapping her wounds.  The pain had dulled just a bit.

Arya looked down. The pressure from the wrap felt better; the pain had thudded into something less frantic.

“You’re good at that. Where did you learn?”  

Lady Crane smiled a sad little smile.  “I’m a jealous woman. I’ve always liked bad men, and they’ve always liked me.  They’d come home, wherever home was that night, stinking of some whore’s perfume.  So we’d fight. And I’d put a hole in them. And then I’d feel terrible. So I’d patch them up.”

Lady Crane walked the tray with the wrappings into the other room and walked back out to Arya, the sad smile a little bit less so as she looked at Arya.  “I got good at patching them up.”

Arya smiled. “And good at putting holes in them.”

“And that.” Lady Crane laughed.

Arya moved, trying not to wince. “What happened to the actress? The one who wanted you dead.”

“Bianca?  She’ll have a hard time finding work as an actress after what I did to her face.”  The woman smirked and ladled something into a bowl, handing it to Arya.  

It was terrible. Arya covered her mouth to keep from spitting it out. Lady Crane smoothed her covers.  “I never did learn to cook. But eat. Eat, you need it.”

Lady Crane sat back and regarded Arya kindly.

“The company is moving on to Pentos soon. You should come with us.”

Arya shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Why not? I have a feeling that you’d be good at this sort of work. And besides, we need a new actress.”  This smile was wicked. And then it softened. “There’s nothing left for you here.”

Arya paused.  

Lady Crane was decent, the first decent human that she’d encountered.   _Him. He wasn’t decent, he was a lie, it was all a lie._

“You wouldn’t be safe. Not while she’s looking for me.”

Lady Crane smiled again, another sad smile that reached her eyes and made them look sad, too.  She reached in for a little flagon and poured some into a glass for Arya, a white liquid.

“What is that? No, I don’t want it.” She moved back away from the glass.

A low laugh rumbled, and Lady Crane pushed it to her. “Milk of the poppy. You need sleep to heal. And if my cooking didn’t kill you, nothing will.”

Arya drank it, and as she fell into comfort she had the woman’s soft hands smoothing her hair, and the warm opiate wash came over her.

 

She slept.

  


\--

It must have been right before dawn, it must have been the next day.  Arya woke in a strange room and the faint glow of pain and the remnants of the fuzziness of the milk of the poppy enveloped her like a blanket.

She heard a crash in the other room.

She jumped up. “Lady Crane?”

Silence.

She walked into the other room and saw the woman, spread on the ground, her arms and legs at a strange angle, her head tilted back and broken.  Her kind face was bloodied.

She had been given the gift.

A figure emerged from the shadows. Arya stiffened and her heart pounded.

“If you’d done your job she would have died painlessly. Instead…” The waif smiled, a cold evil thing, and gestured, proudly, to the bloody room.

The waif walked towards her calmly, a knife in one bloodied hand. A challenge. 

“The Many Faced God was promised a name. He must always receive what is his.  You can’t change that. I can’t change that. No one can.”

Arya watched her movements, so powerful, a machine, meant to kill.

“And now he’s been promised another name.  Just ask your only friend.”

Arya’s eyes widened; the waif’s smile turned vicious, more cunning, victorious.

_A girl will lose her only friend._

Arya looked behind her at the open window and ran for it, jumping.  Her legs scissored in the air and she landed, hard, amongst the merchants that were pulling their fruits and vegetables out to market.  Her stomach burned, the pain from the wounds awoken.  She rolled down the slope and collected herself and started running.  

She could hear the steady footsteps behind her and kept going, tripping over a cart and rolling. She picked herself up and ran again, falling and finally feeling the blood seep out over the edges of the bandages that Lady Crane had so carefully tended to.

She kept running, frantic, hearing the footsteps wane, and falling again down a staircase as her feet started to disobey her, her legs quavering. She reached a hand to press against the sharp pain in her gut and her hand came away covered in blood.

She was so, so close to Needle. She had to make it.

Arya left a bloody handprint to guide the waif, and made her way down the alleys towards the little chamber, leaving bloody marks to guide the waif.  

_There would not be another chance._

She got into the room and lit the candle, pulling Needle out.

 _This is all a girl needed to save herself._  She waited, seated, for the Waif to find her.

The woman entered, triumphantly and shut the door behind her, flexing her arms and letting that unholy smile cover her face.

“This will all be over soon. On your knees, or on your feet?” The waif taunted her, smug.

Arya pulled Needle, placed the blade against her lips and then slashed the wick of the candle.

She could hear the Waif’s footsteps, the short little knife no help to her against Needle’s sharp blade.  Arya whirled around and felt the little sword slice against skin.

_Swift as a deer._

She thrusted and then thrusted again when she felt the resistance of the waifs skin, a grunt and then a yell as Needle pushed through what must have been the girl’s shoulder by the flailing of a limb, the sound of the sword, the movement of the air.

She slashed at her with the hate of every single insult, every blow, every jealous look that the waif had ever given her, Needle as her retribution.

And then Arya heard her breathing, low to the ground; the waif must have been crouched.  Arya slashed midway through the air as ferociously as she could and heard a gurgling sound.

Her windpipe.

There was less movement now, and Arya stabbed over and over again, feeling the form underneath her.  She kicked it and slashed again and again, unable to stop herself.

Stick her with the pointy end.

It must have been done.  There was no more noise, no telltale breathing, no slow movement of limbs, even, on the ground.

Arya walked back to the candle, gripping her little sword, and lit it.

Arya felt her lips stretch widely, grinning at the waif’s body laid out, her blood pooling underneath her from a thousand slashes on her body and one great one like a scarlet grimace on her neck.

Finally.

The Many Faced God was promised a name.

Arya took the Waif’s little knife from her hand and slipped it under the waif’s skin.  Her mouth was contorted in death, the smell of her blood steaming up at Arya, her body strangely light.

Arya peeled her face off slowly, like she had seen Jaqen do so many times.

She put the waif’s knife, hers now, and Needle in her belt and held the face, strangely translucent and soft, blood dripping in her hands, and made her way back to where she knew he would be waiting, waiting to hear of the death of Arya Stark.  

Arya Stark of Winterfell had a gift for the House of Black and White.


	10. Chapter 10

She moved through the cobbles of Braavos even as the sun started to creep higher into the sky.

She’d told the sailor dawn...but she’d taken most of her coin with her.

They’ll wait.

There were ways to get into the House of Black and White that were only known to the Faceless; press a stone here, and a slight opening, just enough for a slim slip of a girl to creep through.

She moved silently into the main corridor.

In the temple, Arya could hear a woman wailing, getting ready to ask for mercy for her child.  Arya wanted to run in and smash the cup out of her hand just as she had for Lady Crane, to stop the woman from believing in mercy.

Death is not mercy.  Death is vengeance.

She turned away.  Someone else’s fight. And not really a good idea, no matter what Arya Stark believes, to pick a fight with the god of death.

She was aware of the dripping of blood from the waif’s face, she handled it as ungently in death as she had wanted to in life.  Let someone else mop the floors, let the waif’s blood spill on the cobbles.

When she walked into the hall she paused.  It was magnificent, terrifying, marvelous.  All the faces, gracing dozens of massive pillars.  Faces as far as the eye could see.

The Many Faced God didn’t care if hers was in here.

It was a lie.

Arya found the face of a young girl, pretty; she took it down, stroking the dead cheeks reverently, wisping her finger along the bow of the blue lips.  A pretty face would serve her well when she got to Westeros.   She pulled another, some young lad with the muddy hair and pale skin of a Westerosi.

Best be prepared.

She put the waif’s face on the wall.  She was not as skilled as Jaqen and the skin was jagged at the edges; blood still dripped from the eyes and the mouth was open as if crying out.  The other faces in here were stilled, quiet; for them death had come quietly.

For the waif, she had earned a brutal murder and Arya savagely ripping her face off of her still-warm body.

_Just so._

  


\--

 

Footsteps.

 

She was not alone.

 

She heard him trudging into the hall, pausing to look at the blood on the stone floor and then walking in.  

And she became cognizant that this would be the last time she saw him, whether she was killed here, or if she sailed off on the ship that she _hoped_ was still waiting at the harbor.

She slunk around the side of a column and pulled Needle out, slowly and soundlessly.

He walked up and his eyes followed the blood up the column to the waif’s silently wailing face.

Arya screwed her eyes tightly.  He had betrayed her.  The bitterness stung her mouth.

Needle outstretched in hand, she stepped out of the shadows.

“You told her to kill me.”  Arya kept her voice steady, kept her hand steady but her heart was sinking, sinking. She could feel tears welling.  He had betrayed her, oh lover, teacher, mentor.

Jaqen turned and looked at her without the slightest hint of surprise in  his eyes.

“Yes,” he whispered, “but here you are.  And there she is.”

There was a flicker of something in his eyes, a spark of pride, of lust, of something more.  He walked up to Needle and pressed his chest, his heart against the tip of the blade; Arya watched as the steel bent against his weight, as the fabric of his shirt started to tear.

Pride, lust, and...possessiveness.

_This had been a test._

He stopped and looked at her, and she felt his eyes move through her, see her, all of her loves and hates as exposed and naked as they could be in front of him.

She stifled a sob.

“Finally a girl is no one.”  His words wrapped around her, rich and warm and she wanted so badly to press up against him, to take his lips and drown in the scent of him; wanted to feel the safety of him up against her, yearned for his touch upon her skin. 

 

_No._

 

She stiffened, let her lip curl in a snarl.

“A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell, and I’m going home.”

He raised his head and gazed down at her, and gave the slightest nod.  She kept him on the edge of the sword for a moment, for a lifetime, she did not know.  All she could do was keep his gaze.   _Lover teacher mentor betrayer. I’m leaving you._

She felt something hot fall from her eyes, cursing that her sadness had shown itself to him.  And just as quickly as the water fell from her eyes he moved to her.

His arms circled around her; Needle was useless against the weight of them, and for a moment Arya stood stock still, fighting herself.  Relief. Anger. Sorrow.  All of it encircled by him, all of it chasing itself in her head as he clutched her to him.

He kept her in his arms for the space of ten heartbeats and then released her, tipping up her chin and placing his lips on her forehead and then joining hers.  She felt his tongue implore her lips to open and they did, and he slid into her mouth so briefly that she staggered against him when the suppleness, the heat, the promise of it slipped back out.

He held her by the shoulders and looked at her one last time.

“Go now girl. Your ship awaits.”

She stood, stock-still, as he stepped back from her, and then turned to walk out the door.  A movement caught her eye as he turned as well, and she stopped to take in the sight of him for the last.

His hand moved over his face and the waves of his hair disappeared, his high cheekbones vanished and he suddenly wore a different face.

The face of the captain of the ship that was sailing to Westeros.

Arya said nothing, her heart moving suddenly too fast, too full for her body to contain it.

They turned and walked out of the House and Black and White towards the harbor, where the early Braavosi morning shimmered off the canals, where the ship waited that would take them back across the narrow sea.

_To Winterfell._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading. : ) I really appreciate your feedback, let me know if you liked it!
> 
> I've already written the scene with Walder Frey, so I'm not going to re-write it; you can read it here:
> 
>  
> 
> <http://archiveofourown.org/works/8830279>
> 
> For canon deviant but still-in-braavos waif/jaqen/arya bath house smutty angst:   
> <http://archiveofourown.org/works/8793058>

**Author's Note:**

> quick little personal challenge. I don't typically write canon and I do typically write very explicitly...this is outside my comfort zone. I have no idea how long this will end up, thought it would wrap at one chap. : )
> 
> if you like it, please let me know! fanfic writers subsist on wine, dirty minds, and your kudos. really!
> 
>  
> 
> I own nothing.


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